Michigan Sugar employees back to work in Sebewaing

MATT TREADWELL

Published
8:00 pm EDT, Thursday, August 26, 2004

A picket organized by striking Ohio sugar employees was lifted late Thursday, and union employees at the company's four Michigan plants in Caro, Carrollton, Croswell, and Sebewaing returned to work for the first time since Monday.

Jerry Sorenson, president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union Local 261G in Sebewaing, said while Michigan members were not on strike, they were showing solidarity with their Ohio counterparts.

The Friday return-to-work comes after the company denied all vacation time requests and threatened to take away Michigan workers' health care benefits, Sorenson said. The Sebewaing local represents about 120 workers.

Michigan Sugar Co. Spokesman Dick Leach said the organization does refuse to pay any workers' vacation wages for missed time since Monday, but would not comment about the possibility of denying health care.

"As far as we are concerned, these have been unexcused absences," he said. "We are talking with our lawyers and doing whatever we have to do to continue to meet the needs of our costumers. It's one day at a time."

Sorenson said his union has filed unfair labor charges against the company because a security clause in the local's contract protects the Michigan employees from disciplinary actions or discharge for their

decision to honor the picket lines of other strikers.

"I don't expect to get a paycheck for (time I didn't work)," Sorenson said before returning to work Friday. "That's the price I pay for my decision. But now they are talking about unjustly taking my benefit package away from me and my family. I didn't expect to pay that consequence. My contract is still in full force."

Leach would not comment about the union's charges.

Union leaders at the four Michigan plants will meet Monday to discuss further what to do with their charges, Sorenson said.

"A line is being drawn in the sand," he said Thursday. "We didn't expect it to go this far."

Sorenson said Friday that employee benefit packages were expected to still be in place.

Workers at the company's Findlay and Fremont, Ohio, plants went on strike Aug. 10 and had been picketing outside Michigan's four sugar plants since Monday.

The Ohio workers have been without a contract since the end of May. Sorenson said negotiations are hung up over health care costs.

"The out-of-pocket expense is too much," he said about the most recent Ohio contract proposals. "They are talking about a pay raise, but it all goes into paying for health care deductibles and premiums. That's taking a step backward for those employees."

Sorenson said the 18 to 20 Ohio storage and packaging employees need their Michigan sister unions' support to gain any sort of leverage at the negotiation table.

Sugar company officials are eager to strike a deal, Leach said. The two sides haven't met since last week.

"We want to sit down and work out our differences," he said. "That is how these things get done."

Both Sorenson and Leach said they hope to have the situation resolved before the harvest.

"We want to ease the anxiety of the local growers," Sorenson said. "We are ready and willing to work for them. They've got a really good looking crop this year.

"It is just that this labor dispute has to be solved. It is the management we have issue with  not the growers."

Sorenson said the sugar harvest usually commences about the end of September, but workers begin preparing for it in the early half of the month.

He said he hopes the sugar industry doesn't run into a similar problem when Michigan labor contracts close out July 31, 2005.

The Ohio workers picketed the Michigan plants Aug. 10 and 11 but returned to the negotiating table before returning Monday.

Michigan Sugar produces more than one-half billion pounds of sugar each year with a work force of 350 year-around and 1,000 seasonal employees according to the company's website, www.michigansugar.com.